I Had a Complete and Utter Meltdown (At a Women's Business Workshop)

In 2017, I participated in the first-ever FAB workshop, a business workshop for women in the food and beverage industry, in Charleston, SC. It was magical. I was invited back for the June 2018 workshop, but this time, things didn't go as planned.

I had just left after eleven years working for Mario Batali, who had resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations the previous December.

On top of my scheduled panels, I agreed to a moderated conversation alongside a woman who had worked for John Besh and chose to stay with his company. I had left mine. The session was called “The Wake of Crisis,” moderated by Kyle Tibbs Jones of the Bitter Southerner, and the premise was simple: there was value in both decisions, and an honest conversation about what goes into a choice like that was worth having.

The night before, my co-interviewee was rushed to the ER. So this became a 1:1.

8am, packed auditorium. I tried to be as honest and vulnerable as possible. Without a co-panelist, the conversation went places it probably wouldn't have otherwise. I talked about how I personally never felt uncomfortable around him but that I had rigid, expressed boundaries that, in retrospect, not everyone has. I reflected on whether my adjacency to him might have given other women a false sense of security and whether I was, in part, complicit in normalizing his behavior.

I talked about how I met my husband working for the company, and how Mario was partly responsible for introducing us (somewhat inappropriately) long before we ever got together. I made a case for not throwing people away. When people do bad things, there should be consequences; however, canceling someone and moving on isn't the same as accountability.

The audience was with me. People engaged with this difficult and uncomfortable conversation, pushing back thoughtfully, asking hard questions and sitting with the discomfort rather than deflecting it.

I was feeling so great.

That afternoon, I was moderating another panel when my phone, which I was foolishly using for my question notes, buzzed with a text from a friend:

"Good for you, girl," and a link.

The headline: "Former Batali employee cautions women food-and-bev professionals against making pariahs of wrongdoers."

This is not how it happened, but I could swear, like a scene out of a movie, phones started buzzing across the room. People are looking at me funny. Squirming in their seats.

I'm pretty certain no one had even seen the article yet. But, I had a complete and utter meltdown.

You’re Brain Did This on Purpose

What I know now is that my amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for assessing danger, was hijacked.

I went into fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode, like I was staring down a saber-toothed tiger. I can't even tell you exactly what I was afraid of: my reputation, my now-partner's reputation by association, or Mario's feelings. His potential retaliation (from a man who was fully canceled and had zero leverage)? A feeling of betrayal because I didn't know there was press in the audience.

The amygdala's job is simple and ancient: keep you alive. It scans for danger, and when it senses it, it doesn't wait for nuance, context, or logic. It hits the alarm. Your body floods with stress hormones. Your nervous system shifts into survival mode: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Incredibly useful if you're being chased by a T.Rex. Much less useful when the threat is a headline, a screenshot, or a room full of people who might be judging you.

Your brain doesn't distinguish well between social threat and physical danger. It just feels like something is not safe.

Daniel Goleman named it in his 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, “amygdala hijack.” An overwhelming emotional response that is disproportionate to the actual stimulus. The brain's threat detector overrides the rational brain, and suddenly you're acting in ways that don't feel like you, often triggered by impulsive, regrettable actions driven by fear, shame, or perceived threat.

When that happens, the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for reasoning, perspective-taking, and decision-making, goes partially offline. You can't think clearly. You can't access your values. You lose your sense of proportion.

I wish I had known then what this was. Just naming it (recognizing that your body has been taken over by a stress response) is enough to start taking back some control.

Sound Familiar?

Restaurant leaders live in amygdala hijack territory. A line cook walks off mid-service. An owner appears unannounced on a Friday night and pulls you aside. A one-star review goes up and someone screenshots it into the group chat at 11pm. If you're in a leadership role, the stakes of losing your composure, even briefly, feel high. Your team is watching what you do next.

When You’re In It

So here I was, at a workshop full of women supporting women, melting into a puddle in the corner, distracting from everything the organizer had worked so hard to build. Writhing in emotional pain because of my brain.

Here are a few things that actually help.

Name it. Just to yourself. Labeling what's happening creates enough distance to interrupt the spiral. You're not crazy or broken; you're having a nervous system response.

Buy yourself time. This is not the moment to send the email, defend yourself publicly, or make a big decision. Or in my case, cry nonstop for 24 hours in a room full of colleagues.

A few lines worth keeping in your back pocket: "I’m not in the right headspace to respond thoughtfully right now."  Or "Let me think about that and follow up."

Buying yourself time isn’t avoidance; it’s regulation.

Get back into your body. Your brain needs a signal that you’re not in immediate danger. Slow your exhale (longer out than in). Put your feet flat on the floor and notice physical sensations. Step outside for sixty seconds. I like saying to myself (out loud if necessary), “I am safe; I am not in danger.” “Thank you, brain, for trying to protect me, but I am ok.”

Reality-check the threat, but later. Not while you're in it. Once you've come down, ask: “What am I actually afraid of? What's true versus what am I telling myself? What's within my control?”

Most of the time, the honest answers are less catastrophic than what your amygdala had you convinced of.

This June is the ten-year anniversary of FAB. Nine years since my epic crash-out. And I'm going back as a speaker. 

Nine years is a long time to sit with something. Long enough to stop being embarrassed by it and start being  grateful for it. That meltdown taught me more about nervous system regulation than any training I've done because I lived it. I’m incredibly grateful to Randi Weinstein, founder of FAB, for being willing to have the meaningful conversations that allowed us to repair any harm. 

If your team is living in high-stakes, high-pressure dynamics (everyone in hospitality), I'd love to talk about what it looks like to build some of these skills before you need them. Happy to connect.